Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) solutions, which provide both fixed IP-based land line and cellular telephony services, are becoming increasingly popular. Specifically, the goal is to provide both services to a single dual-mode mobile device, e.g., a mobile phone, which is capable of switching between networks on an ad hoc basis. Although convergence of the two services is desired, it is still common practice to maintain subscriber profiles on separate domains due to the lack of synchronization communication between the two domains. Practically speaking, a change made to a subscriber profile in the IP domain is not reflected in the cellular domain. The situation is problematic because subscribers utilizing communication devices supported by both the Internet Protocol (IP) domain and cellular domain occasionally need to update specific feature data, such as a call-forwarding number. Consequently, a user must remember to manually update a subscriber profile in both domains on separate instances (i.e., update the first domain at the present time, then update the other upon the eventual migration to the second domain). This lack of subscriber profile coordination and synchronization can result in different service behaviors across the two domains because a subscriber may not migrate to the second domain until after a considerable amount of time has passed and, thus, the user may have forgotten the original subscriber profile modification. This is an impractical solution and exposes FMC service control limitations to subscribers.
In an alternate scenario, subscriber profile coordination and synchronization is accomplished by eliminating the use of the home location register (HLR) for service control. This solution essentially places complete reliance on an application server, which resides in the IP domain. Although this scenario provides service control transparency, it is a much more complex solution since the user must have access to the application server in the IP domain in order to make subscriber profile changes, even in instances where the mobile device is located in the cellular domain. In addition, the cellular network must be capable of transmitting mid-call service control events (such as flash-hook) to the application server, which cannot always be accomplished due to inherent technical difficulties.
Accordingly, there exists a need for improved methods, systems, and computer program products for synchronizing subscriber feature data and profiles across the IP and cellular domains.